State GOP's new chairman pledges to heal party rifts

Former ad executive also vows to refrain from making attacks

Feb. 12, 2013

Craig Lawrence

Written by

Gordon Howie

The Lawrence file

NAME: Craig Lawrence AGE: 65 FAMILY: Wife Marcia, three adult children, five grandchildren BORN: Le Mars, Iowa EDUCATION: BA, University of South Dakota, 1969 CAREER HISTORY: Worked for newspapers and television stations out of college. Co-founded advertising firm Lawrence & Schiller in 1976. Retired in 2012. POLITICAL HISTORY: Never served in elected office. Worked on many political campaigns. Elected chairman of the South Dakota Republican Party on Saturday.

More

ADVERTISEMENT

New South Dakota Republican Party chairman Craig Lawrence hopes to craft a unified message for the party going into the 2014 elections. But the longtime ad man might find the “unified” part of that task more of a challenge than the “message.”

“There have been some rips and tears and ugly headlines,” said Lawrence, who was elected chairman Saturday after being asked to pursue the job by Gov. Dennis Daugaard. “There are divisions to be healed, and I would hope I’ll be able to do that.”

State Republicans won convincing victories in the November legislative and statewide elections, but the year also saw divisive primaries, anonymous robocalls attacking state leaders and lawsuits filed on all sides.

Lawrence said as chairman, he’s going to start by listening to people across the party’s political persuasion.

“The most sensitive and in need of work issue in the Republican Party is how to bring us together in trust for one another, that we really are on the same wavelength,” he said. “It starts by listening and respecting one another and realizing that ... everyone involved is principled and honest and well-intentioned.”

'Stand firmly on the Republican platform'

Some Republican activists who have clashed with party leaders had a different take on how to unify the party.

“The way to unite the party is to stand firmly on the Republican platform,” said Gordon Howie, a Rapid City activist and former gubernatorial candidate. “I am hopeful that (Lawrence) embraces the platform in its entirety and that his actions will demonstrate his support of those principles.”

Lawrence’s background isn’t in mediating disputes, though.

His expertise is in advertising, from decades spent leading the Sioux Falls advertising agency he co-founded and lent his name to: Lawrence & Schiller.

He said he’ll take the same approach to selling a party as he did selling his clients’ products.

“That’s what I’ve done my whole career,” Lawrence said. “I can hardly do a job without thinking about messaging.”

Social network sites, technology

He’s already contemplating plans to amp up the party’s use of social network and other technology and wants to build the South Dakota Republican Party’s brand identity with voters.

(Page 2 of 2)

“I think the party would be assisted by a central message, which I would hope to (with other party leaders) ... generate and get people to identify with,” he said.

The state’s Democrats, who ran a centralized legislative campaign of their own last year to little avail, said Lawrence is welcome to try.

“I think (Lawrence’s) biggest challenge is realizing that politics is different from advertising,” said Ben Nesselhuf, chairman of the South Dakota Democratic Party. “There’s people out there to call shenanigans on you when you make a claim. He can paint a pretty story, but at the end of the day, our job, being the loyal opposition, is to point out facts, to point out where (Republicans) have failed.”

Saying no to campaign attack ads

Lawrence said if Republican candidates expect an attack-dog role from the party next year, with negative campaigning, they could be in for a surprise.

“That will be difficult for me,” Lawrence said about negative campaigning. “This chairman ... does not believe in negatives. I know what some might expect that the first thing some GOP chairman does is level some blistering attack. I don’t believe in that. I believe that negative politics have made generations of young Americans cynical about politics.”

Nesselhuf suggested that praise of positivity is self-serving.

“If I was in his position, I would make the same claim,” Nesselhuf said. “As long as we just talk about how great everyone is, Republicans are going to have the advantage — right up until we start talking about the record of Dennis Daugaard and the record of (former governor and U.S. Senate candidate) Mike Rounds.”

Shortly after Lawrence’s election was announced Saturday, the state Democratic Party sent out a news release accusing Lawrence & Schiller of a history of leveraging “political contributions into millions of dollars in no-bid contracts for his company.”

Lawrence & Schiller long has received contracts from the state to promote tourism to South Dakota.

“Too often we see situations where people kick $2,000 over to elect their candidate and then get a huge contract out of the deal,” Nesselhuf said.

That history, Nesselhuf said, suggested Lawrence was an “insider who will continue to make sure that taxpayer dollars wind up in the pockets of their political contributors.”

Lawrence said his company had been given a contract without competition once, in the 1970s, as an emergency response to falling tourism because of high gas prices.

“That’s the only time ever that the tourism contract from the state of South Dakota was not subject to presentations and bidding,” Lawrence said. “They love to throw around the term ‘no-bid,’ but that’s just not true. ... Every time, it’s had to be re-won in competitive presentations against firms both in South Dakota and out of South Dakota.”